Two days

After two days in his new "crawler" room, the dink finally started crawling. And two days after that he came down with croup. And then four or five days after that he pulled himself up on the rocking chair in his bedroom while DH was home sick with him. I don't know how I'm supposed to keep up with him, growing and changing and trying new things and looking at me with this new little face that says "watch what I'm getting away with." Dr. W told us at his nine month appt. that by now, when we say "no" that the dink should know what that means, to the point that he cries (or almost does). Pretty harsh. I've only recently discovered that I may actually have the occasion in his lifetime to say no for any reason, and that's only because his latest interests are eating and yanking electrical objects that could inevitably cause his death. And even then, denying that sweet baby boy of such charged pleasure is the hardest thing for me to do. The other day, DH asked me why I didn't clean out the dink's basket at daycare, or read his sheet when I'm picking him, or make sure all his bottles are in his bag...And I told DH that I pick up the dink as soon as I walk in the door, and it's hard to take care of all of those things while I'm holding him, signing out, lugging his carseat. So DH asks why I don't do all of those thing first and pick up the dink last. Because it takes all of my strength not to run inside the daycare when I pull up every day because I'm so desperate to see him.

Sleep, baby, sleep

I don't know why the dink won't sleep at daycare. Sure, you can blame the fluorescent lights, the crying babies, and the stimulation of the bouncy seats, jumpers, and plastic toys. But I've seen him conk out at a Hornets game, while in the bathtub, and the other day for two whole hours in the afternoon while just outside his bedroom window a house was being raised. If it were up to me, I'd have him sleep for five out of six hours he's at daycare every day so when I pick him up, he's refreshed, happy, and ready to start his day, because that's when mine starts, when I get to be with him...When we say goodbye to his "teachers," ride home listening to the radio while he chews on his socks (still on his feet), and then smiling when the car stops, quickly into the house, put my breast milk in the fridge, and grab him from his carseat before he starts fussing. Run into the bedroom to take off my shoes and my shirt, strip him of his socks, bib, and pants, and place him on the floor while I quickly run to the bathroom. This is where the dink gets very offended. Every day, that shock of being set down so soon after being reunited with me. He turns red and screams, looks at me with horror. The thing is, I never leave his sight, but it's still too much to bear. Poor baby is too tired, typically running on a 40 minute nap in the past 8 hours of being awake. He is desperate to lay on my lap, on our corner of the couch, and nurse himself to sleep. Within forty-five seconds of latching on, his eyes are rolling back into his head and his body becoming limp. Naptime starts at 2:30 p.m., too late for that little tired man who prefers to nap around 12:30 on the weekends. And too late for me too, waiting an hour or sometimes two until I can finally see him smile, bounce in my lap, take a walk outside, play together in his room. On weekdays, I don't miss a second of the dink's awake time in the afternoon. I have all of those waking hours that I missed to make up for. But before you know it, it's dinner time (5:00), bath (5:30), he's rubbing his eyes (5:45), and before you know it, we're back on the couch, nursing, where we just started our day only a few hours before. So when the dink moves to his new room at daycare next week, where he's supposed to spend his time learning to crawl and walk, I will pray only that he wears himself out beyond his ability to stay awake. I'll insist that he be put down for naps twice while at daycare, so maybe the hours we spend together in the afternoon will finally rival that of his caretakers. Dear God, will you please make my baby sleep when he is not with me? I don't care if he ever learns to crawl, drink from a sippy cup, or even walk, for now. I just want him to sleep. Sleep, baby, sleep.

On the verge

The dink has been on the verge of crawling for a couple weeks now, but he just can't seal the deal. He can maneuver from the sitting up position with one leg straight and one bent, to perching on all fours, rocking back and forth. I think once I saw him bring his back leg forward in an attempt to take the first crawl, but then he fell down to his tummy, all four limbs splayed. It's pretty frustrating for him, though that doesn't seem to motivate him too much. He'll eye a toy that's out of reach, attempt to crawl for a minute, then give up and find something else to occupy him. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Self-pacification? Lack of drive? Acceptance and happiness amidst turmoil? Who knows what the dink will reveal about himself in the next months.

For now, I'm pretty sure he has a future as a master electrician. His favorite things in life are characterized by buttons, flashing lights, and electrical functions: light switches, light strings (i.e. the fan light he loves to pull on and off), cd players, cell phones, answering machines, tv, remote control, alarm system pad, microwave...there is no end to this. Just seeing the alarm system, which I never even let him touch, gets his legs and arms pumping and his breath short. What a dink. I've started panting back at him when he gets himself going, and he laughs at me. He also laughed this week when I tried to firmly tell him "no" for the first time. He kept rolling over during a diaper change, and I used a deep and firm tone of voice to try to stop him. Yep, he thought that was pretty funny.

If dink's not a master electrician, maybe he'll make his mawmaw proudest of all and be a priest, because he sure loves his prayers at night. When he doesn't fall asleep nursing on the couch, I take him to his room, cradle him like a teeny baby and sway back and forth and whisper his prayers to him. First Our Father, then Hail Mary, then O My Jesus, and the Guardian Angel prayer...then another few Our Fathers and Hail Marys as his eyes start rolling back into his head and his body becomes heavier and heavier. Sometimes he falls asleep like that and sometimes he just persists in that soporific state, just on the verge, enjoying the rhythm of the words and the kisses I give him in between verses, until I place him in his crib and pat his little back while he sucks on his fingers and finally seals the deal for himself. See that--maybe the dink just likes that middle ground, teetering between his today and enjoying the moment before moving on to his tomrrow. I could stand to spend some time there on the verge myself.

Green Beans

Few things in the dink's life are as good as green beans. Sure, there was the antique bookcase he was obsessed with looking at for a while, and then the light switch phase. And of course, banging on a cd player is still really important, as well as holding mama's keys and seeing the cats outside. But the ultimate leg-kicking, panting, wide-eyes, and rabid mouth opening are reserved singly for green beans. So far, the dink has eaten apples, bananas, peaches, sweet potatoes, carrots, peas (hates), cereal, and yogurt. And of course the green beans. Whoever said, don't feed your baby fruit first because then they'll always prefer it to vegetables was stupid. I could feed the dink melted chocolate from a spoon, and I truly believe he'd abandon it for a side of mama's homemade green mush.

I really enjoy making baby food, and I'm pretty proud of myself for abandoning all of those plastic containers and glass jars for a blender, some ice trays, and whatever good looking produce I can find. I love to see the ziploc bags lined up in the freezer--bright orange for carrots, deep dark green for the grean beans, a thick minty color for peas, a fall burnt orange for sweet potatoes, and a gradient of creamy yellow to brown for the bananas. Strangely, the cubes that look most appealing are the apples--an opaque off-white that look so smooth and tasty every time I pull them out to put in his glass tupperware for daycare. Making the baby food is like breastfeeding at this point--can be a pain but really gives me pleasure and satisfaction when I'm done.

Purging

We walked through Granny's house last Sunday, sister and I pointing to every other item. Yes, I'll take the hand-tinted photos of the French Quarter, didn't you say you wanted the crystal decanters? I tried to usher us through quickly, squeezing this last trip before the estate sale into some made-up time limit. I said the dink needed to get home.

Dink was 12 weeks in utero when Granny died. At six weeks, I had pressed my face up to hers in ICU and yelled to her that I was pregnant. I could see in her eyes and her faint smile that she understood. I held her hand and told her all of the slim details I had so far of the pregnancy, and I prayed that she would find the dink one more reason to will herself healed. To an extent, that worked. At 8 weeks, I marched excitedly into her hospital room with a chain of ultrasound photos, pointing out the baby's arm buds and head. Her shaking hands crumpled the thin-sheeted imprints as she tried to rip one off. DH grabbed some scissors, and we left one of the photos in the room with her. And at 9 weeks, 10 weeks, and 11 weeks, I saw the dink move around her room, sometimes on the nightstand, sometimes on the windowsill, sometimes near the tv. I'd like to know where he was at 12 weeks, when she called it quits. I couldn't make it to the hospital in time to have one last look at her room. I suppose she decided that 27 weeks was too long to wait when she had already been waiting so long.

Granny, I wish you would have waited longer. You really would have loved the dink, and don't you remember how sweet S was as a baby, learning how to say Ga-ranny and running to you for a hug? I suppose life is full of sweetness no matter how long you live. And I guess you'd had your fill. I like to imagine that you're moving about the dink's room now, maybe petting his hair when he wakes up at night (you know he loves that), or simply watching from the corner in your old rocking chair.

First Father's Day

At seven and half months old, the dink has come along way. Recent accomplishments include sitting up for extended periods of time without falling over, drinking water out of mama's glass, and waving his hands in the air in his first attempts to imitate clapping. He also "hugs and kisses" me when I pick him up from daycare, which consists of him grabbing the hair on both sides of my head and latching his mouth on to my cheek. He certainly experiences each emotion to the fullest.

For Father's Day, dink gave DH the gift of fussing for the first time when DH left the room. It was just a little whine that didn't last long, but he let me know that his daddy's absence did not go unnoticed. That sort of thing is a big deal. DH is still telling the story of the first time the dink was happy to see him after work. It was shortly after I went back to work, and the dink and daddy started to get to know each other better by having their morning routine together. I was burping a schlumped over pile of sleeping baby, trying to rouse him to finish eating before going to bed, when DH came home. I passed over the groggy sweetness, who briefly opened his eyes, looked at DH, and delivered the funniest ridiculously sleepy half smile with his eyes barely cracked open, acknowledging his daddy.

I whimper too when I walk out of the bedroom at 6:40 a.m. and leave dink and daddy snuggled up in the bed. And when the daycare tells me he fussed all day and that they think he's sick or teething or whatever and then I get him home and he's happy as a clam. And when DH doesn't come home from work until after seven and I've been feeding and playing and mothering and houseworking for hours without him. But baby smiles bring celebration. Like mini hallelujah orchestras everywhere, and jumbled syllables of thanksgiving for this life, for life in general, for dinks, and for daddies.

Blackberry picking

On Sunday morning, I picked blackberries with Dad. DH fed the dink his apples and cereal while I hopped on the golf cart in my pajama pants and slippers carrying a mug of coffee and an empty Mardi Gras cup for the goodies. Dad had made several paths in the woods and cut back spidery branches before my arrival, so we'd have access to the pickins. After we'd filled two cups with mostly the juicy berries found in small slices of shade, Dad drove the cart fast over the edges of his bumpy land, so I had to cover the cups with my hands, to show the me blackberry vines that were almost ripe, not near ripe, and overripe. The early green berries he said are hard to spot in the backdrop.

When we got back, the blackberries nearly filled a quart-size ziploc, and he reminded me three or four times that day to take them home. He doesn't care for them. But he was already talking about which bushes would be ripe the next time I'd come.

DH is learning about his own blackberry picking with the dink. He called me from a break at a mediation today to tell me that every morning when he gets out of the shower, the dink gives him the biggest smile and kicks his legs from his bouncy seat. It's like dink is wondering what in the world happened to him for those five minutes and is joyous at his return. Every morning, a big smile and happy legs.